LÖVE

Larsii30 wrote:I see no need for write completely new libs to "create a game in minutes".
There are pretty well done libs out there, the only thing is if we need something that does not exists we have to write it.

Yeah I know... I know it was just a bad idea... well soo something new mhh... dont know I just know I am one of those "Other programers". I dont have a great computer but I can gather some testers

Larsii30 wrote: are there people who would work on a community project generally out there which also got the skills we need ?

I dont know if I have many skills that can help I do really want to participate in something like this!

so then try mobilize people to help us get this started

Positive07 wrote:Also making a structured game with a big team is difficult cause everyone handles things in a different way

I'd just like to say this: making an unstructured game with a big team is much, much more difficult than that.

By the way, if you people know and like Community, the television series, there is a fan-made game for it, made by a huge team of hundreds of people (I even played my tiny part in it), which is made in LÖVE. It's called Project Hawkthorne.

Robin wrote: I'd just like to say this: making an unstructured game with a big team is much, much more difficult than that.

To begin a project with a big team and without detailed documents is maybe the biggest fault you can make.

Robin wrote: By the way, if you people know and like Community, the television series, there is a fan-made game for it, made by a huge team of hundreds of people (I even played my tiny part in it), which is made in LÖVE. It's called Project Hawkthorne.

I don't know about the tv series but I dowloaded the last build of Project Hawkthorne a few days ago and it
looks really clean and nice. this going along really good.


So, I would be interested in doing something togehter with all lovers, thats all I can say
Maybe... someday... in near future ... is something coming along.

Hello all,

It seems that the project here that people tried to start has fallen flat on its face! All github links take me to a 404 error, and there isn't much community activity around the game, and the games vision/documents are hard to understand/read; All I get is that its a steam punk RPG?!. I think its right that if your going to start a community project you need to have certain things in place for it to be successful.

The first thing is a solid idea that everyone willing to be involved in the project understands and agrees too. As you may of found out this can be quite difficult as people want different things or have different ideas on how things can be done. This is where I think a community driven game project is very hard to make work, as there will be tasks that some of the community will not like doing but will have to be done in order to make the game a success.

The second thing is to have a project manager, now this person must take control of the whole project and its vision. This is a very important role and is not for the faint hearted as there is a lot of work in managing a whole team and keeping an eye on everyone. The project manager will have to market the game, and do other business like things.

Now the final thing is consistent updates to build the community around the game project, and to achieve in house goals the team has. This is important as everyone in the team has to take something positive away from contributing to an open-source project. For me personally that is the satisfaction of doing something I am proud to show off to my friends and work mates.

These are just some tips from my experience of running and contributing to various open/closed source projects in a team. I am willing to help this community to continue with this steam punk RPG project or perhaps start a entirely new project that is smaller and easier to achieve.

I would probably have a position of 'Other programmers' as I am still technically a junior programmer (still in education), although I could take the role of either 'Lead Programmer' or 'Project Manager' depending on which ones are available/need someone (these are a big commitment and would need some serious thought though).

Thats all I would like to say for now. I hope you can take something away from this post, and perhaps we can start to work on something that everyone is willing/able to contribute too within the community hear at Love. C:

Thanks for reading,
-- Tom Chinery.

This project was destined to fail. I think the most important reason for that is that you need to have a singular vision of the end result to make things work. So either:

• Lone wolf style projects
• One boss and the rest are "slaves", in the sense that they do not have direct input on the direction of the project, although they may still be very creative and contribute things.
• A predefined vision, where all contributors are "slaves". This is the approach Project Hawkthorne takes: the goal is to emulate, recreate and complete the game seen in Digital Estate Planning (an episode of the tv-series Community). Everyone there has seen the episode, so everyone knows what common goals they will strive for.
• A tight-nit group of people. There the social connection replaces the singular vision. It's a dangerous thing, because if it doesn't work out, it may hurt the friendships it was based on, but at the same time that can be used to move things forwards.

AWoS was none of these. It had a project leader of sorts, but it took way too much input from other people, which lead to a lack of commitment, which lead to a lack of responsibility, which lead to desertion.

Robin wrote: AWoS was none of these. It had a project leader of sorts, but it took way too much input from other people, which lead to a lack of commitment, which lead to a lack of responsibility, which lead to desertion.

-> get input - > discuss - > vote for / against implementation
+ more then 50% agreed - > new feature
+ less then 50% agreed - > no implementation / possibility for a new voting phase.

That was the idea, but it doesn't work in practice. There's no personal connection that way, and you need incentives like that to keep a community project going.

@ doomed to fail:

Some charities have an interesting ability to accommodate both the "loyal" volunteers and the "drive by" volunteers. To emulate this, I was wondering if a Wiki style site would work, where the latest developments and challenges were posted, such that anyone dropping by could see what needed to be done, and then provide that service if they so wished. Are there precedents for this? Or has that approach also been tried and failed?

It hasn't been tried, but I doubt it will work. We don't have any "loyal" volunteers any more, so there's no one to make that wiki, and no one to continue the work of the "drive by" volunteers. There used to be just one (the guy who started the project), but after he'd seen he was the only loyal one, he gave up.

Now, if you or anyone else wants to start a wiki and be loyal and things, I'd say go ahead, but keep in mind you'll probably be the only one for a (long) while.